I can haz growzing stuffs
The raised bed that will house the initial 36 plants (tomato, cucumber, oinion, carrot, corn, garlic) is complete and an expansion zone is currently being solarized. Later in the year, potato, peppers, and lettuce will follow. I also have a rosemary plant ready for transplant but am struggling to determine where I would like to place it. Sub-projects Solar heat driven Composting Invertebrates Integrated food production system journal Today, I find additional germination. The corn and tomato seeds are pushing up sprouts. The carrots and oinions remain dormant for now. Keithjd21 (talk) 15:55, May 13, 2013 (UTC) Germination!!! If all else fails, I shall at least eat organic heirloom cucumbers this year. Not so bad for a city boy. Keithjd21 (talk) 15:18, May 12, 2013 (UTC) Rain. Quite a lot of it, in fact. I won't likely have an opportunity to do anything significant today. I have instead turned my attention towards how I might spread the meme. One possibility that I find potentially amusing is to start a new organization dedicated to promoting widespread adoption of humanure. I would call it EAT SHIT to focus attention on increased organic food security and for the play on words. Our web domain would be eatshit.org and we would have a web form that facilitates users emailing their congresscritters with the subject line: EAT SHIT. (Calling them mutha-fuckas in the body of the email would be a personal decision.) I think a lot of people who don't even believe in humanure would use the form. It would be a glorious day if we could hold a rally where thousands of people shout in unison "eat shit! eat shit! eat shit!" I would be so proud. Praise Jesus. Keithjd21 (talk) 13:45, May 11, 2013 (UTC) Acquired a trunk load full of landscaping pavers via freecycle today. My brother has an old above ground pool that is to be disposed of. It is too big for my integrated systems purposes and it leaks like a sieve but I plan to recover the supports and the liner to solarize the shade crop area I have yet to cover up. Targeting Monday to get that all in place. Keithjd21 (talk) 20:42, May 10, 2013 (UTC) Germination? Not yet. Patience grassa-hoppa. While I wait for my seeds to germinate, I have managed to plant 6 bulbs of elephant garlic. I have some rosemary that is ready for planting as well but can't really decide where to put it. My thinking on the base of the food chain is that I need more diversity to achieve robustness. Algae is great but I think yeast might be even better. Still undecided is whether or not pitch yeast into a salty medium and raise our artemia (brine shrimp) or to go with fresh water and feed out some other invertebrate. Also, I need to do some research on the best way to produce my own sugars to feed the yeast. I'm think sugar beets might do the trick. At any rate, Micro-Algae Cultivation Research Station #1 might soon be joined by Yeast Cultivation Research Station #1. Raising Infusoria is likely on the horizon as well as they are just about bullet proof. That gives me a missing link as Infusoria are quite small and I'm not sure what to feed them to. They might be worth maintaining just to ensure fish fry have a supply of a first food that will persist in the water column long enough to be consumed. Keithjd21 (talk) 03:48, May 8, 2013 (UTC) Today, I acquired 30 cinder blocks, 4 plastic kiddie pools, chicken wire in a 4' by 50' spool, 3 lengths of 1/2" by 10' commercial electrical conduit, a neighbor's garbage bag full of lawn clippings for composting, a clothesbasket full of newspaper, a 3' rosemary plant with 5 stalks, and 6 monsterous cloves of elephant garlic ready for planting. I completed building out the portion of the garden that will be this year's raised bed and it is approximately 4' by 15'. An adjacent area that is 15' long and about as wide remains covered in black plastic to solarize. I will let that solarize until next year and will be planting some additional items along the margin after going commando with a garden hoe. I joined Free Cycle http://freecycle.org in hopes of acquiring additional items for my research at the favorable price point of zero. One of the kiddie pools has been placed in a sunny spot filled about 3/4 with water as well as the nutrient solution left over from a failed hydroponics experiment in a previous year. I am aiming for a wicked algal bloom which will feed various micro-organisms, likely daphia and cyclops, to become live fish food. The fish are to become an important part of a system that is as fully integrated as possible and potentially hold promise to generate cash, more on that later if research proves out. I've decided to declare this feature the Micro-Algae Cultivation Research Station #1 . My current compost bin is far too wet at the moment. It is quite a lot more like soup than compost. I am now covering it during rain and uncovering otherwise to promote evaporation. The water is clearly being driven off. Keithjd21 (talk) 03:02, April 29, 2013 (UTC) Just a place holder for now. The bed is under construction, seeds are being started indoors, pototoes have been put up to develop eyes and I will acquire some additional items to begin my journey towards Animal Husbandry Literacy and Horticultural Literacy this weekend as well. Keithjd21 (talk) 00:46, April 26, 2013 (UTC)